


Confidences

by Aeshna_cyanea



Series: A Betrayal of Trust [4]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Mazikeen/Lucifer (mentioned), confidences, reveal (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 10:29:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13925256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeshna_cyanea/pseuds/Aeshna_cyanea
Summary: Lucifer finds someone to confide in about the situation with his demon.





	Confidences

**Author's Note:**

> This story happens some time before "Ghost" in the timeline of this series. Since the two stories are pretty much independent from each other, I'll leave them out of chronological order.

"Who's that?"  
  
Looking away from the elevator doors that had just closed behind Detective Decker, Lucifer found that her spawn was standing in the doorway of his bedroom, a silver picture frame in her hands. Apparently, while the detective had given him some last minute instructions on how to look after her offspring, said offspring had taken the opportunity to snoop around.  
  
With an annoyed huff, he stalked over to her, took the frame out of her hands, and restored it to its rightful place on the nightstand.  
  
"Hasn't your mother ever told you not to touch other people's things without permission?"  
  
The girl just shrugged and turned to look at the photo in its beautiful silver frame again.  
  
"Who is she?" Trixie lifted her head and looked up at him. "She's very pretty."  
  
A smile spread across Lucifer's face. "Yes she is, isn't she. Her name is Mazikeen, but I usually called her Maze."  
  
"Is she your ex-wife or ex-girlfriend?"  
  
"What?" He stared down at the child. "No, nothing like that. Why would you think so?"  
  
"Because of the way you look at the picture. It's the same way mommy used to look at pictures of daddy." She tilted her head quizzically. "So, if she isn't your ex, why do you have her picture on your nightstand?"  
  
Lucifer sighed. "That's complicated."  
  
Trixie scowled at him. "That's what grown-ups always say when they don't want to answer."  
  
"Yes well, in this case, it really is complicated."  
  
"You could explain it to me."  
  
She was staring up at him with wide eyes, her expression somewhere between hopeful and pleading. Lucifer looked at her thoughtfully.  
  
"You really want to know?"  
  
When the girl nodded, he sighed again. It was tempting. He wanted to tell someone all about it. The logical choice would of course have been Dr. Linda, but so far he had been unable to talk with her about this painful subject. As long as she refused to accept that he was telling her the literal truth, he doubted that she would be able to understand his relationship with his demon.  
  
Should he really confide in the detective's offspring? On the other hand, why not? The small human was often surprisingly insightful, and she wanted to know.  
  
"Alright. I'll tell you about Maze. Let's go sit down."  
  
He returned to the living room and headed for the couch, but then stopped and went over to the bar instead.  
  
"I need a drink for this."  
  
"Can I get a drink, too?"  
  
The girl had followed him and was now looking up at him expectantly. Seeing his raised eyebrow, she elaborated: "No alcohol."  
  
"Some juice, then?"  
  
After a bit of debate, she chose apple juice and Lucifer quickly poured her a tumbler full and handed it to her. Trixie took a sip, gave a hum of approval, and headed over to the couch with her drink held carefully in both hands. After a moment's hesitation, the devil grabbed the two bottles - apple juice for her, whisky for himself - and followed her.  
  
"I guess I should start at the beginning." He smiled wryly. "Once upon a time, I had a big fight with my father, and he threw me out of Heaven, all the way down into Hell."  
  
"He just threw you out? Without giving you a chance to apologize?"  
  
Lucifer drew himself up and gave the small human a severe look. "Oh, I had absolutely no intention to apologize. I had been in the right. He was the one who was wrong."  
  
To her credit, the child met his gaze squarely and didn't back down. "Then he should have been the one to apologize."  
  
"Ha. Yes, he should have. But he never did. Instead, he threw me out, and decreed that I should rule Hell for all eternity."  
  
Trixie frowned. "That was really mean of him."  
  
Lucifer gave her a beaming smile. How gratifying to have someone take his side!  
  
"Yes it was, wasn't it. But that's my father for you. If you ask me, he's a nasty piece of work." He shrugged and decided to get back on topic. "Anyway. I was now King of Hell, responsible for bringing some measure of order to that cursed place, and for punishing the damned souls my father sent there."  
  
The girl perked up at this. “What did you do to them?”  
  
Lucifer grinned. “Oh, lots of things. It always depended on what they had done.” He was about to give her several examples to illustrate the point, but then hesitated when a thought occurred to him. “But I doubt that your mother would be pleased if I told you about that.”  
  
The girl’s pout was adorable, and for a moment Lucifer was tempted to disregard the Detective’s likely reaction and regale her daughter with colorful anecdotes of his most creative punishments. But no, that wouldn’t do. Letting the child manipulate him like that would set an extremely unfortunate precedent, and only encourage her to try it again. Besides, no matter how amusing those stories would be, they weren’t exactly what he wanted to talk about right now.  
  
“Anyway, I thought you wanted to know about Maze?”  
  
Trixie kept up her pout for a moment, then shrugged and nodded. Lucifer smiled.  
  
“Excellent. Where was I? Oh, yes. So, I was King of Hell. I got the demon hordes under control, built myself a palace with a throne and everything, and settled into the tedious business of ruling. And pretty soon, I was bored out of my mind.”  
  
“Wasn’t being a King fun?”  
  
The girl looked disappointed, and Lucifer worried for a moment if he was destroying some treasured childish fantasy with his revelations. He shrugged off the concern. Sooner or later, she would have had to learn the truth anyway.  
  
“I don’t know that being a king is ever fun. Being King of Hell certainly wasn’t. Just lots of work, nothing but problems everywhere.”  
  
Trixie frowned. “I thought if you are King, everyone has to do what you say. Couldn’t you just have told them to do the boring work?”  
  
“It doesn’t really work that way.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
Lucifer looked at her speculatively. “When your mother tells you to do something boring that you don’t want to do, like-,” he searched for an example, then remembered a recent discussion between mother and daughter he’d witnessed, “-cleaning up your room, for example, do you always do it?”  
  
His lips curled up in a smirk when the girl squirmed in her seat and scowled before shaking her head.  
  
“Exactly. It’s the same with giving orders to demons. You have to make sure they actually do it, and you have to check that they’re doing it properly, and not just stuffing all the stuff into drawers and closets and under the bed.”  
  
He grinned and winked at her, making Trixie giggle.  
  
“Now, to get back to the story, I had established myself as King, and life had become a boring, tedious routine. And then, one day, boy meets girl. Or, in this case, Devil meets one very special demon.”  
  
He paused and raised a questioning eyebrow when the child frowned at that. She looked in the direction of the bedroom, and then turned back to him.  
  
“She doesn’t look like a demon. I thought demons were all scary looking, with huge teeth and horns and stuff. She looks normal, and pretty.”  
  
Lucifer chuckled. “I can assure you that Maze never was and never will be normal. And she’s more than pretty, she is absolutely stunningly beautiful. But to answer your question, demons come in all sorts of forms and shapes. Some look completely inhuman, some, like Maze, look mostly human.”  
  
“Mostly means not all the way.” Trixie pointed out immediately.  
  
“Yes it does.” Lucifer considered the small human beside him. She reminded him a lot of her mother right now. Same persistent, inquisitive nature. But where the Detective was prone to ignore or deny the truth if it didn’t fit into her preconceived worldview, the child appeared to be much more open to accept reality, even if it was fantastic. He decided to tell her the truth.  
  
“That photograph doesn’t show Maze’s true face.”  
  
The child’s eyes widened. “She doesn’t really look like that?”  
  
“No. Well, partly.” Seeing the confused frown on the small human’s face, Lucifer explained: “The right half of her face really looks like you see in the photo, but the left half doesn’t.”  
  
“What does it look like then? Is it all scary, with warts and boils and stuff?” Trixie asked excitedly.  
  
“No, nothing like that.” He frowned at the disappointed sigh this elicited, and searched for a way to explain Maze’s demonic features. “It looks a bit like a corpse. No skin, parts of the flesh missing, the exposed bits looking rotten and weathered.”  
  
“Cool.”  
  
The awe in the girl’s voice at this description pleased him. Lucifer disliked the fact that most humans would consider Mazikeen’s true face repulsive, disgusting, horrifying. To him, she was beautiful.  
  
“I wish I could see her real face,” Trixie said wistfully, drawing his attention back to her.  
  
“I wish Maze were here to show it to you, child.” A thought occurred to him, making the devil sit up straight. “Actually, if you really want to see what Maze truly looks like, I do have some sketches I can show you.”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
Grinning widely at her enthusiasm, Lucifer stood up. “Alright. Come with me.”  
  
Trixie lost no time in hopping off the couch, and he led her down the corridor until they reached his private office. A quick touch unlocked the door, and he courteously held it open and motioned for the child to precede him. Lucifer followed her and watched in silence as she looked around curiously. A wide grin spread across his face when the girl caught sight of the portrait hanging on the wall opposite his writing desk and promptly gasped in surprise.  
  
It was one of his best works, a life size charcoal sketch of Mazikeen’s true face, every detail of her beautiful features replicated faithfully. The woman in the picture was looking straight at the observer, a knowing smirk curling up her lips.  
  
“Awesome!” The child’s exclamation brought his attention back to her. “She really looks like that?”  
  
“Yes, she does. Beautiful, isn’t she?” A wistful note crept into his voice. How he wished Maze were here and he could look at her right now, instead of just the picture. With an effort, he pushed the melancholic thought away. “I have some color sketches of her, too. Let’s see, where are they?”  
  
Lucifer stepped over to the bookshelf that held his sketchbooks and ran his fingers over their spines until he reached the right one. He pulled it out and moved to the sofa in the corner of the room. Trixie followed him and sat down beside him without prompting. To his pronounced discomfort, she leaned against him and watched with interest as he began to leaf through the book, searching for the sketch he wanted.  
  
“What’s that?” She stopped him as he reached a full page image in glaring reds, orange hues, and specks of yellow. “Is that a volcano?”  
  
“No. That, child, is the great Lake of Fire in Hell.”  
  
“Cool.”  
  
“Exceedingly hot, actually.”  
  
He smirked at the reproachful look this little quip got him, and quickly turned a few more pages until he reached the one he had been searching for.  
  
It was another portrait of his demon, this one done in watercolor pencils. Instead of looking straight at the observer, Maze was gazing off into the distance, her head turned slightly so that the inhuman side of her face was fully exposed to the viewer.  
  
The child reached out with one hand, and Lucifer tensed, preparing to stop her if she tried to touch the sketch. But this proved unnecessary. Trixie’s fingers remained hovering inches away from the paper as she traced the exposed muscles and tendons of Maze’s face.  
  
“So cool.”  
  
“Not cool, hot. Absolutely smoking hot.” Lucifer leered playfully, remembering a moment too late that he was dealing with a child here, who presumably had no idea what he was talking about. In this, he was mistaken.  
  
“You said she wasn’t your girlfriend.”  
  
Lucifer raised a quizzical eyebrow at the frowning girl. “Correct.”  
  
“But you think she’s hot. You two had sex, didn’t you?”  
  
A smile spread across his face, hovering somewhere between fond and smug. “Oh yes. Lots of times.”  
  
“So, you had sex, and you look at her picture like mommy used to look at daddy, but Maze is not your girlfriend?” Trixie looked at him searchingly.  
  
Lucifer shrugged. “I told you, it’s complicated.”  
  
“You also said you’d explain,” the child pointed out.  
  
“And I will. But let’s go back to the living room. I definitely need a drink if you’ll keep on asking questions like that.”  
  
Giggling in amusement, Trixie got up and skipped over to the door, while Lucifer took a moment to return his sketchbook to its place on the bookshelf. When he turned around, he found the girl looking at him thoughtfully.  
  
“Lucifer?”  
  
“Yes, child?”  
  
“You’re the Devil.” She paused and stared at him expectantly, clearly waiting for confirmation.  
  
“Yes, I am.”  
  
“Does that mean you have another face, too?”  
  
Lucifer froze.  
  
“You do, don’t you? Can I see it?”  
  
“No!”  
  
The child flinched back at his vehement outburst, staring at him with wide eyes. Contrition filled him. Scaring her was absolutely the last thing he wanted to do. After a split second’s hesitation he crouched down so they were eye to eye.  
  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just-,” he paused, searching for the right words, “my other face, as you put it, is really not a pretty sight.”  
  
Immediately, Trixie threw herself at him and hugged him with all her strength, making Lucifer squirm in embarrassed discomfort.  
  
“I don’t care. You’re my friend. It doesn’t matter what you look like.” The child pulled back just enough to gaze earnestly into his eyes. “You can show me, and I promise I won’t be scared.”  
  
“Thank you, child. But I am not going to show you my devil face.” No matter how heartwarming her reassurances were, there was no way he was going to take the risk.  
  
Trixie released her hold on him and pouted for a second, but then she tilted her head thoughtfully. “Can I ask you something?”  
  
The corners of Lucifer’s mouth curved up as he straightened, brushing his hands over his suit in an attempt to smooth out the wrinkles. “Of course. You can always ask. Just don’t expect me to always answer.”  
  
“Do you have horns and a tail?”  
  
“No, I don’t. No horns, no tail, no cloven hooves or goat’s face.” He grimaced.  
  
“I knew it!” The girl was beaming at him. Lucifer raised a surprised eyebrow. This was not the reaction he had expected.  
  
“You’re an angel, aren’t you?”  
  
“Not anymore.” If his life on Earth had taught him anything, it was this fact.  
  
The girl frowned, but went on. “Okay. But you used to be one, right? You were born as an angel?”  
  
“Not so much born as brought into being, but yes.”  
  
Trixie smiled in satisfaction. “Angels don’t have horns and tails. So if the devil is an angel who got thrown out of Heaven, why should he suddenly have horns and a tail?”  
  
“Ha, exactly! Well reasoned, small human.” Lucifer smiled widely. He was impressed.  
  
“But why do people think you have all those things?”  
  
He shrugged. “I don’t really know. I suspect that some of my siblings have been telling humans nasty stories.”  
  
“Your siblings are bullying you?” Trixie was clearly outraged by this revelation.  
  
Lucifer tilted his head and looked thoughtfully at the small human. “Yes, I suppose that is what they have been doing. Bullying. Slandering my name. Vilifying me.”  
  
“That’s really mean of them!”  
  
“Yes, it is.” He shrugged. “But that’s how my family is. We’re not nice people.”  
  
“You are nice!” Trixie protested hotly. “You’re my friend. You scared that girl who was bullying me. And you help mommy catch bad guys. You’re a good guy, Lucifer.”  
  
And with that, she flung her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly, making the devil squirm once again. He reached down and awkwardly patted her shoulders, and to his great relief this made her release her hold on him.  
  
“Alright, let’s get back to the living room. There is a lot I have to tell you about Maze. After all, I’ve barely started the story.”  
  
“Okay.” Grinning happily once again, the girl skipped down the corridor ahead of him and they settled back on the couch.  
  
“Right, where was I?”  
  
“You said one day you met a very special demon. How did you meet her?”  
  
“Well, it was like this…”  
  


* * *

  
“... and that’s where we are right now. Maze is gone, and I really need to find her and apologize, but no matter what I try, who I hire to search for her, she’s disappeared without a trace.”  
  
Lucifer leaned back with a sigh. He felt drained. Once he’d gotten started, he had told Trixie everything about his life with his demon. He had shared stories about their millennia in Hell - including a few anecdotes about creative tortures they had inflicted on the guilty, which the child had loved - and about their occasional excursions to Earth. About his decision to leave Hell behind and come to LA for an indefinite stay, and Maze’s choice to accompany him. He had shared his doubts about whether it really had been much of a choice for her at all, given the grim alternative of staying behind in Hell without him, surrounded by their enemies.  
  
He had talked about their life in LA and how it had affected their relationship. About Maze being unhappy here, and the two of them slowly drifting apart. He had rather glossed over the role his preoccupation with the girl’s mother had played in the breakdown of his relationship with his demon, but he suspected that this had not escaped her notice. She had asked a few probing questions there, forcing him to admit that Maze had not liked the Detective. Somewhat to his surprise, the spawn had not been offended by that.  
  
And finally, he had shared the unpleasant truth about their final confrontation, and how he had betrayed Maze’s trust in him and broken their deal, and she had left him.  
  
Trixie was looking at him thoughtfully, digesting the flood of information. After a few moments, she roused herself. “You think Maze is hiding from you. You think she doesn’t want you to find her.”  
  
“I don’t know. I mean, yes, I believe that she is hiding, erasing her tracks. But I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t want me to find her. She could be hiding from someone else.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
Lucifer sighed. That was the problem with this theory. Maze didn’t really have a reason to hide from anybody but him. Of course, there was good old demon paranoia to consider.  
  
“My brother Amenadiel, for example. Or pretty much all of my family. None of them would be happy about a demon being free on Earth, and they might decide to do something about it.”  
  
The expression on the child’s face was decidedly skeptical. “You don’t really believe that.”  
  
He sighed again. “No. Not really.”  
  
“Then maybe you should stop searching for her.”  
  
Lucifer grimaced. “That’s what your mother keeps telling me. She says that Maze’s actions make it clear that she doesn’t want to ever see me again, and that I should respect her wishes.”  
  
“But you don’t want to do that.” Trixie was looking at him searchingly.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
He stared at her for a moment. Right now, she reminded him not of her mother, but of Doctor Linda. The good doctor also had a tendency to ask him why he wanted things. And like in his sessions with her, he found it difficult to answer the question.  
  
“I… “, he paused, trying to sort out his thoughts and put them in words the child would understand. “I have to find her. I hurt her badly, and I broke our deal. I have to make up for that, but I can’t do that without finding her first.” He sighed once more. “That’s what your mother doesn’t seem to understand. I have to make amends for what I did.”  
  
The girl nodded solemnly. “Mom says when you do something wrong, you have to admit it, and apologize, and make up for it if you can.”  
  
“Exactly! And that’s what I want to do.” Another sigh escaped him. “But if your mother is right, if Maze is hiding from me and never wants to see me again, then I am only making things worse by tracking her down.”  
  
Silence fell for several long moments, and then Trixie spoke again. “Sometimes, when mommy comes home and calls for me, I hide and don’t answer. And when she comes and finds me, I pretend that I didn’t hear her.”  
  
A puzzled frown creased Lucifer’s brows. “Why do you do that?”  
  
The girl gave a shrug, far too deliberately careless to be anything of the kind. She studiously did not meet his gaze as she replied: “I guess I just want to see if she’ll come and find me.” She paused and briefly looked up at him, her expression serious and sad. “Some of my friends at school, their parents wouldn’t come and find them. Some don’t even call for them when they come home.” Now a happy smile spread across her face. “But mommy always comes and finds me!”  
  
Lucifer smiled in response. “That’s because your mother cares about you. She loves you very much, child.”  
  
Slowly, his smile faded, giving way to a thoughtful frown. “You think that’s what Maze is doing? Hiding from me to see if I’ll care enough to come find her?”  
  
This time, the child’s shrug was more genuine.  
  
He pondered the idea. On the surface, it didn’t sound like something Maze would do. She had never been one for any plan that involved waiting for the other side to act. ‘Get your blow in first’ had always been her motto. But this wasn’t a matter where you could strike first. This was about hurt feelings, about betrayed trust and broken promises. The usual demon way of dealing with betrayal was to kill the traitor, slowly and creatively if possible. Maze hadn’t tried to do that. She hadn’t struck out at him in any way, and Lucifer had occasionally wondered about this.  
  
Stupid human feelings! He didn’t know how to deal with them. Pain was a familiar feeling for him of course, but the pain he felt over what he had done to Mazikeen was different. As were the loss and grief he felt over no longer having her around, no longer having their bond, their friendship. Was Maze struggling with the same? Did she, too, have feelings she didn’t understand and had no experience in handling? He suspected so.  
  
And if he was right, then her hiding from him to see if he would find her was definitely plausible. At least equally plausible as her hating his guts and never wanting to see him again.  
  
If he gave up his search now, he would never find out which of the two alternatives was correct. Worse, if she was hiding as a test for him, giving up was exactly the wrong thing to do. No, he would not give up his search. He would find his demon, no matter how long it would take, and he would go to her and let her tell him directly what she wanted. And then he would respect her wishes, even if it turned out that she never wanted to see him again. It was the least he could do.  
  
Nodding to himself, he turned his attention back to the girl and found her watching him intently, a faint smile on her face.  
  
“I think you may be right, but I won’t know for sure until I find Mazikeen and ask her.”  
  
“So you’ll go on looking for her?”  
  
“Yes, I will. Thank you, Beatrice, for your advice. You have been very helpful.”  
  
A wide grin spread across the girl’s face and she bounced excitedly in her seat. “Yes! You’re welcome, Lucifer.”  
  
Smiling at her enthusiasm, he picked up his glass and raised it in a silent salute. Trixie scrambled to return the gesture with her own drink. Lucifer solemnly clinked his glass against hers, then took a long sip of his whisky while she gulped down her apple juice.  
  
They sat in companionable silence for a few moments before the child tilted her head and gave the devil a quizzical look.  
  
“Lucifer? When you find Maze, are you going to come back here with her?”  
  
Her use of ‘when’ instead of ‘if’ made him smile, but the question itself elicited a sigh and a shrug.  
  
“I don’t know, child. It will depend on what Maze wants. She may not wish to have anything to do with me, after all.”  
  
“I hope she’ll come back here with you. I’d like to meet her.”  
  
“I’d like you to meet her, too.” There was a hint of a smirk in his smile.  
  
“Do you think she’d like me?” Trixie asked, open curiosity mixed with just a hint of something more serious. Lucifer was quick to reassure her.  
  
“Yes, little human, I think Maze would like you very much. Especially if you really have no problem with her demon face.”  
  
“Good, because I think I’ll like her a lot. And I think her demon face is awesome!”  
  
That made him laugh. “I certainly agree with you there!”  
  
“I hope you find her soon.”  
  
“So do I, child. So do I.”  
  
Once again there was silence in the penthouse for a little while, and once again Trixie was the one to break it with a question.  
  
“Lucifer?”  
  
He tensed, wondering what she would spring on him now. “Yes, child?”  
  
“Could I get something to eat? I’m hungry.”  
  
A quick glance outside told him that the afternoon was well advanced, the sun already low in the sky. They had spent a long time talking.  
  
“Your mother will probably be here soon to pick you up. And I know she’s planning to make dinner for the two of you at home.”  
  
“But that means I won’t get anything to eat for at least an hour, and I’m really hungry now!”  
  
The whining note in her voice made Lucifer wince and warned him that a tantrum was definitely possible if he didn’t act swiftly.  
  
“Alright, I suppose a little snack won’t do any harm.”  
  
Immediately, Trixie’s mood changed from petulant to hopeful. “Maybe some cookies?”  
  
“I don’t think your mother would approve if I allowed you to stuff yourself with sweets before dinner.” He grinned at the pout this earned him. “But since you’ve been so helpful with your advice about Maze…”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
Laughing at her triumphant cry, and feeling just a tiny bit of a thrill he usually got when he was defying orders and breaking rules, Lucifer stood up and held out his hand to the girl.  
  
“Let’s see what we can find in the kitchen cupboards, shall we?”  
  
Trixie was off the couch in a flash, grabbing his hand and all but dragging him towards the kitchen.  
  
“Really child, there is no need for strong-arm tactics. I’m perfectly willing to come along peacefully!”  
  
The girl’s laughter filled the penthouse as she and the devil headed off in their quest for an afternoon snack.


End file.
